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Shooting a ramrod out of the barrel..?
- Thread starter Snapshot in Norway
- Start date
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TexiKan
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2005
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- 542
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- 151
I will admit I shot one out of my Dixie .40 cal rifle. I was still fairly new to the hobby and joined a local club. While on the line, someone had an issue and the rangemaster called a cease fire. I had already loaded so I put my rifle down with the ramrod in it to remind me it was loaded. A couple of us began talking and when the range was clear to resume shooting, I picked up the rifle and fired without removing the ram rod. Yes, it had a noticeable kick and then I realized what I had done. I searched for it, figuring I should not have any trouble finding such a long ram rod but I never found it. We were shooting at paper targets and there was no evidence it hit the paper and the cardboard backing. Dang! That was at least 40 years ago. Fortunately I have not repeated such an incident .
Early in my career, I had a second job at my LGS. I was hired because I was to be the "black powder guy". This was back in the 1990's, and Eastern Europe had ended a lot of Communism, so as the decade progressed a lot of the folks from Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, immigrated to the USA. So this nice Polish fellow came into the store, and fell in love with a TC Hawken. It was used but the owner had bought it and never used it, then sold it to the store, and we even had the factory box and the manual for it. He bought a "starter kit" for it too. This was on a Thursday evening.
Friday evening, the guy is back, needing a new ramrod. Well that's a common problem with new guys, and wooden ramrods. So he wanted something "stronger" so I sold him a TC fiberglass ramrod for the Hawken. Off he went.
Saturday morning he was back. He needed another ramrod.
So twice before I had tried to go over the loading process with him, but he assured me he didn't need that and he was going to read the book. So this time I made him review with me what he was doing, because he said, "The ramrod worked only a few times"....,
Turned out he thought the TC Maxi-Ball would fall out of the barrel if it was not held in place by the ramrod.
He was still confident his English reading skills were good, but he apparently did not understand to put the ramrod back, and the bullet will stay put. So he had launched not one but TWO ramrods, the first being wood, had disintegrated, and the second being fiberglass, had survived for about three shots.So we sold him the last TC Hawken replacement rod that we had in stock, and swore to him that it would be OK as long as he made sure the bullet was against the barrel, inside the rifle.
The next time he came in it was for powder, caps, and bullets, so he must've done it right from then on...
LD
I was hunting with a guy once back in the early 70s, M/L hunts on the MGT areas had just begun, none of knew much about our guns, we just poured stuff down the barrel and fired them.
My friend had an early H&R unmentionables that he loaded so strong that the fore end would pop of when he shot, he held his gun together with duct tape.
It snowed pretty hard that morning which confused the deer, my friend got into a small herd on a bench in the mountain we were hunting and started taking shots. When he shot the deer would run in circles and end up back in front of him. every time he shot he had to put his gun back together.
When he ran out of balls and still hadn't hit a deer he loaded his ramrod for one more shot. KABOOM! He didn't hit a deer and couldn't find enough of his rifle parts to continue hunting. Seems like he only had a broken butt stock in his hand after he shot, he pitched this off to the side, said a few ugly words and went back to his IH 4 wheel drive for the ruff drive home. IH being International Harvester, which along with Jeeps were the rage at the time.
It is a wonder he didn't kill himself, we tried to tell him he was walking on thin ice with his loading procedure but there are some people you just can't get to, he was literally pouring his barrel half full of powder when he loaded his gun.
My friend had an early H&R unmentionables that he loaded so strong that the fore end would pop of when he shot, he held his gun together with duct tape.
It snowed pretty hard that morning which confused the deer, my friend got into a small herd on a bench in the mountain we were hunting and started taking shots. When he shot the deer would run in circles and end up back in front of him. every time he shot he had to put his gun back together.
When he ran out of balls and still hadn't hit a deer he loaded his ramrod for one more shot. KABOOM! He didn't hit a deer and couldn't find enough of his rifle parts to continue hunting. Seems like he only had a broken butt stock in his hand after he shot, he pitched this off to the side, said a few ugly words and went back to his IH 4 wheel drive for the ruff drive home. IH being International Harvester, which along with Jeeps were the rage at the time.
It is a wonder he didn't kill himself, we tried to tell him he was walking on thin ice with his loading procedure but there are some people you just can't get to, he was literally pouring his barrel half full of powder when he loaded his gun.
I've never done it but I've seen it done....I did shoot a false muzzle off a gun once and never was able to find it.
ronaldrothb49
45 Cal.
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2021
- Messages
- 672
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- 1,136
Witnessed it once. One of those flexible plastic rods in a 32 cal. Cut his target in half at 25 yards and put a nice bulge in the barrel.
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2019
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- 7,683
Yeah, it happened once to me...a borrowed '64 Springfield repro musket. No witnesses. The rod was kind of bent, but no complications. You can never be TOO careful!
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2021
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I've only ever heard of it happening. But I've never done a "woods walk" which seems, on balance, to be where most of the occurrences... occurred? Even paper publications have contributors admitting to such an error, so it is unsurprising and probably not particularly shameful, despite it being somewhat embarrassing.
- Joined
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This is... the best thing... that I have ever read. Seriously. Unbelievably fantastic. Like if you tried to explain brushing one's teeth to a panther-cat.Early in my career, I had a second job at my LGS. I was hired because I was to be the "black powder guy". This was back in the 1990's, and Eastern Europe had ended a lot of Communism, so as the decade progressed a lot of the folks from Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, immigrated to the USA. So this nice Polish fellow came into the store, and fell in love with a TC Hawken. It was used but the owner had bought it and never used it, then sold it to the store, and we even had the factory box and the manual for it. He bought a "starter kit" for it too. This was on a Thursday evening.
Friday evening, the guy is back, needing a new ramrod. Well that's a common problem with new guys, and wooden ramrods. So he wanted something "stronger" so I sold him a TC fiberglass ramrod for the Hawken. Off he went.
Saturday morning he was back. He needed another ramrod.
So twice before I had tried to go over the loading process with him, but he assured me he didn't need that and he was going to read the book. So this time I made him review with me what he was doing, because he said, "The ramrod worked only a few times"....,
Turned out he thought the TC Maxi-Ball would fall out of the barrel if it was not held in place by the ramrod.
So we sold him the last TC Hawken replacement rod that we had in stock, and swore to him that it would be OK as long as he made sure the bullet was against the barrel, inside the rifle.
The next time he came in it was for powder, caps, and bullets, so he must've done it right from then on...
LD
I was test firing a beautiful handmade flinter. After two shots I had decided to buy it. The third shot put a piece of the ramrod through the target. Yes, at 25 yards it was on paper but not black. The other two pieces were on the ground in front of the target. It is reassembling to shoot your ramrod but shooting someone else's downrange gets you red ears lasting three days. The owner just laughed.
There was a black powder club in Colorado that had a teddy-bear with several ramrod pieces sticking out of its chest. If you shot your ramrod you got the bear and had to bring it to every club meeting until someone else qualifies to become custodian. They said that there were three kinds of BP shooters, newbies, one who admitted having shot a ramrod and liars.
When I was first started in rendezvous, I bought a pair of elk-skin trousers. I was being harangued to roll in the dirt and I said "No, it has to be your own dirt" when a lady stepped forth and agreed. She then expounded a bit of various stains. One blood stain, she told us, was from her first deer, skewered with her ramrod.
There was a black powder club in Colorado that had a teddy-bear with several ramrod pieces sticking out of its chest. If you shot your ramrod you got the bear and had to bring it to every club meeting until someone else qualifies to become custodian. They said that there were three kinds of BP shooters, newbies, one who admitted having shot a ramrod and liars.
When I was first started in rendezvous, I bought a pair of elk-skin trousers. I was being harangued to roll in the dirt and I said "No, it has to be your own dirt" when a lady stepped forth and agreed. She then expounded a bit of various stains. One blood stain, she told us, was from her first deer, skewered with her ramrod.
I did it once. I was at a shoot, the guy next to me had been a medic in my company so we were having a pretty good gab fest, then a guy shows up that I had not seen in years, my wife told him where I was, he had had three tours in VN, so the three of us are jabbering away to beat the band in-between shooting, I touch one off, .62 smoothie, and it rocked me back on my heels! I still didn't realize what happened till I went to reload and sure enough, no ramrod. The line captain wanders over and discretely says, shot your ram rod didn't ya, I saw you rock back. He says, go on over to the range shed, they'll fix you up, I'm figuring they keep an extra rod there for such occasions, so I tell them what happened, well, no rod, instead the guy hung a sign around my neck that said "Dumb Ass", which I took in good spirits. He said not to worry, every guy on the line, probably twelve guys, has worn that sign one time or another and a couple of em twice for sure. Good times!
Robby
Robby
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Loaded a dry ball at a match. Tried to pull it with the ramrod and the screw and got stuck. Took the torch hole out, dumped some 4F in the pan, pushed a little in the barrel, and sent it down range. Its magic!
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So glad I don't live there.
James
Sometime back about 1970 , the J. C. Penney Dept.stores sold a b/p rifle called a Buggy Rifle in .45 , made by Hopkins and Allen. Had a cute short barrel just long enough so that a cedar arrow would almost fit all the way in the barrel with the tip of the arrow sticking out the muzzle. One guy experimented with the arrow launcher , but the feathers didn't last too long and arrow stabilization was problematic.
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I'm sure the only reason I have not done it is because I use a steel loading rod with a large ball on the end that would block the sight if I tried to shoot without removing it. I sure have dry balled quite a few times in the last 50 years of shooting muzzle loaders though. I think I still hold the Alaska state record of 5 dry balls in a single silhouette match. The timed fire turned my brains to oatmeal it seems on that day. Never will live it down! 
Capt. Jas.
58 Cal.
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Watched my cousin shoot his on a woods walk and part of the darn thing wobbled down and hit the gong
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Two Minie balls in my Parker Hale Musketoon over 45 grains of 2F was rather stiff , that being a bit of an understatement
Pour a bit of water in the barrel to wet patch next time. Almost always will allow a easy hand pull instead of a fight
steved
40 Cal.
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2004
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- 253
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- 20
I shot mine downrange with my first shot at the first shooting station of the Shandaken Primitive Biathlon. After huffing up on snowshoes the "Fat Man's Misery" hill leading up to the first shooting station I was so out of breath at the top that when I dropped the first charge and rammed the patched ball in one stroke through the loading block, I forgot to pull the ramrod out once I let go of my loading block. I was only using 50gr FFF and although the recoil felt a little stiff I didn't think anything of it. I saw a branch move below the gong target so I figured I missed low. I then measured and charged the powder for my second shot at the station and only when I reached for my ramrod did I realize what had happened. They guys closed down the station for a few minutes so I could look for it, to no avail. Not one to carry a spare ramrod around on a primitive biathlon course, I had to do the "walk of shame" through the following stations and on down the trail to the end, only to record an embarrassing "DNF" - did not finish. During lunch in the clubhouse following the event one of the guys managing the station came up to me in the buffet line and said to me "Hey, we found your ramrod". I turned around and saw him smiling as he held out his hand, which held a few powder burned hickory splinters. Classic! The way I see it, the longer you shoot black powder firearms the more likely you are to pull of one of the inherent blunders (dry ball, short start, powder only, etc). I can say with a straight face that I've done them all!
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